I'm not really sure the rules support this at the current time. Really should get NickName to chime in on it. The way I interpret the rules, you would check for adjacency to doors at the end of the turn. Technically, since that's a simultaneous action, you would check doors in whatever order you wanted to.

I see what you're communicating here, but I'm not convinced yet that it wouldn't work the way I theorized. Let me clarify my reasoning, then I leave it to you folks who know the game far better than I to judge the logic:

If a miniature in your squad ends its turn next to the door in my example image in the original post, it isn't adjacent to both doors (as I see it, anyway). Because doors are treated as walls until opened, your miniature isn't adjacent to both sides of the door when you go to check adjacency. It's only adjacent to the closest side, because it has no line of effect through to the other side of the door that wall until it opens the first side.

The simultaneous actions rule you mention above may indeed be a foil to this, but it's interpretive enough for me raise a hand and call a judge to the table to check it out. (That's exactly why I posted this thread.)

If you check doors at the end of your turn, and when you go to check doors you're only adjacent to one door, but opening that door exposes another door, do you get to check again?

To use another example, lets say you have doors set up like this:

___|XXX|AXXX|

In this diagram the vertical line immediately to the left of character A is a door, and so is the horizontal line. Both doors are closed when A ends its turn in the position shown. Do both doors open, even though A only had contact with the vertical door when you go to check adjacency?

If so, then the double doors in my example don't work the way I hoped. I was theorizing that only the doors you have contact with when you go to check adjacency will open this turn. But if you get to double-check after the door opens, then the idea doesn't work and you're right that additional language would need to be added to the floor rules if the powers that be decided they wanted to make it work this way.

LoboStele wrote:

However, at the same time, the current rules don't really support more than one terrain line on a grid line. Can you have more than one feature on a grid line? We've never had that before.

As others have mentioned, there are terrain squares adjacent to doors on some maps, but that's about it.

However, it's worth noting that for as long as WotC had me doing the limn lines, which is to say pretty much every map since Ossus, the door limns fall predominantly on one side or the other of the line between squares. I'm fairly certain that's the way they always were; I have the style guide they gave me around here somewhere, and I think that specified this treatment. The exception is blast doors which are in fact printed at twice the thickness of normal doors and occupy the 1/8 inch door width on both sides of the line. The limn rectangles on those doors are double-thick as well.

If anyone wanted to playtest this notion, all they would have to do is treat those extra-thick doors as double doors like I outlined above. See how it affects play, if at all. If it was found that this treatment enhances those maps, it would be an easy thing to put into the floor rules: "Thick doors (those twice the width of a standard door) are treated as two doors standing parallel along the same line."

It'd be very interested to see how this affects maps like my Exodus-Class Heavy Courier, which has a mix of thick and thin doors.

Of course, I like the idea of game effects that key off of the map itself, even if they're not always practical. Nearly all of the blast doors I've ever put on a map have a control panel on the wall near them. I think it would be neat if those doors could only be opened by a miniature that ends its turn in the same square as the control panel...

Thanks again, folks! I'll check back later, but I may or may not start putting a variant door indicator like that shown above on new or reprinted maps. It occurred to me as I wrote this that thick doors already HAVE a variant indicator: their blue rectangles are squares. If the ruling ends up being that doors drawn as shown in my example wouldn't open any different from normal doors anyway, why reinvent what's already distinctive?

If you check doors at the end of your turn, and when you go to check doors you're only adjacent to one door, but opening that door exposes another door, do you get to check again?

You also have to assume you aren't in fact adjacent to that other door and that's a stretch. You are adjacent to the 4 grid planes and the 4 grid corners. The terrain features only exist on the infinitely narrow grid, not somewhere just to the side of it whether there's one, two, or more terrain features sharing it--they're just drawn side by side so you can actually tell what color they are. So "both" your doors must exist in the same place, thus they're one door.

Also, the situation you describe almost exists with the imfamous turbolift "corner door" at the top/center of Christophsis and this door hasn't worked in a way as you describe--they whole L is either open or closed and that would remain true regardless of any character position or wall one might add for example purposes.

The terrain features only exist on the infinitely narrow grid, not somewhere just to the side of it whether there's one, two, or more terrain features sharing it--they're just drawn side by side so you can actually tell what color they are. So "both" your doors must exist in the same place, thus they're one door.

This is how I interpret the maps as well. Nickname said it better than I could have.

And as for the other comments replying to my prior post.....give it a rest guys. The idea of additional rules added to the Floor Rules just for the sake of adding rules has been beaten to death, and for exactly the reason I posted. The Floor Rules are for Tournament balance ONLY. They are not for introducing wholly new rules to the game. That just serves to confuse people. The Tournament rules ought to be as close to the original WOTC rules as possible, so that any new player, or someone unfamiliar with the forums, can pop in off the street and play in the Championship at GenCon. Again, as NickName said, take that part of the conversation back over to the Floor Rules update thread if you need to. But that's the way it's always been, and likely to stay that way unless you can convince quite a few people otherwise.

If you want to house-rule double-doors and blast doors for your local tournaments, then absolutely nobody is stopping you.

_________________-AaronMand'alor"You either die a hero, or you live to see yourself become the villain."

But he does it with the sure knowledge that if he isn't meeting the desires of the community (and in particular the respected members who've supported him to this point who weild a lot of influence) it's easy enough for that group to shift en masse to another leader who does a better job. So it's very much in Dean's best interest to listen and build concensus. Every once in a while he'll have enough good will to try something a bit more risky but that's only earned through making a lot of good decisions.

Silly example: Dean could put "Players whose first name is Dean get 20 gambit points each round" into the Gamers Floor Rules, but just about everyone would stop using the Gamers Floor Rules and start using whatever pops up in its place to fill that need.

Sorry if this hijacks your thread Chris, but I feel that this is the time to think about changes, since we are changing things anyway.

Interesting, that your comment (and the logical nature of it) reflects exactly the same mentality that in my understanding, plagued the church in the 3-5th centuries as it came to terms with gaining power in the Roman Empire - oddly, the same concept was at work. God was considered "the unchanging" and therefor all change was considered exactly the same as any other. So for example, having a son, and that son not being co-eternal even if done before creation history, meant that there was a time when God was not a Father, and therefore, God must have changed to become Father. This was unacceptable because according to the orthodox, if they allowed that change to be a part of theology, then there was no stopping their constructions of apostolic transmission, and hence, the control of the bishops over the church and the empire. Their construction required that A, nothing had changed because God couldn't change, and that B, they were in fact the legitimate heirs to that tradition.

That leads us to the fall of the Roman Empire, the splitting of the church into East and West, and directly into the Dark Ages. I'm not sure it's a very logical conception to use today in that light

Point is, all changes are not the same. The top point of a "slippery slop" can be completely different than a bottom point. Real life dictates that we are never completely 100% consistent in anything, and that what is really searched for are the happy mediums where things work more or less as we want them to.

Saying that we, added Gambit, and therefore are obliged to consider any other houserule under the sun is just not a legitimate conception - no matter how logical it might seem to our modern sensibilities of legal fairness and justice. In reality, nothing in our world works like that, outside of our own beliefs of it working that way.

So where do we draw the lines? Well, no reason to really have a hard and fast rule about it (see the TD catch by Calvin Johnson in Week 1 for a perfect example of why hard and fast rules fall apart eventually). But the general principles do apply. The tournament rules are there to ensure as much fairness and competitiveness as possible. All of the changes to the rules that have been done, can be argued to fit that narrative (whether you buy that completely or not is irrelevant). That is the "limit" we should continue to uphold to the floor rules. But it isn't in and of itself a hard limit either. For example I raise the map list changes. In the past, the general plan was to limit maps based on the experiences of play for fairness and competitiveness. In the current case, we are under extreme expansion, and while those principles will be applied, there is no particular game benefit reason to say we should add custom maps. We are doing so because of outside convictions. But this is not the same thing as making changes to the very design nature of how maps work. That is a change much farther down the "slippery slope", that I think most of us would be uncomfortable with leaping down to.

Sorry if this hijacks your thread Chris, but I feel that this is the time to think about changes, since we are changing things anyway.

Interesting, that your comment (and the logical nature of it) reflects exactly the same mentality that in my understanding, plagued the church in the 3-5th centuries as it came to terms with gaining power in the Roman Empire - oddly, the same concept was at work. God was considered "the unchanging" and therefor all change was considered exactly the same as any other. So for example, having a son, and that son not being co-eternal even if done before creation history, meant that there was a time when God was not a Father, and therefore, God must have changed to become Father. This was unacceptable because according to the orthodox, if they allowed that change to be a part of theology, then there was no stopping their constructions of apostolic transmission, and hence, the control of the bishops over the church and the empire. Their construction required that A, nothing had changed because God couldn't change, and that B, they were in fact the legitimate heirs to that tradition.

That leads us to the fall of the Roman Empire, the splitting of the church into East and West, and directly into the Dark Ages. I'm not sure it's a very logical conception to use today in that light

Point is, all changes are not the same. The top point of a "slippery slop" can be completely different than a bottom point. Real life dictates that we are never completely 100% consistent in anything, and that what is really searched for are the happy mediums where things work more or less as we want them to.

Saying that we, added Gambit, and therefore are obliged to consider any other houserule under the sun is just not a legitimate conception - no matter how logical it might seem to our modern sensibilities of legal fairness and justice. In reality, nothing in our world works like that, outside of our own beliefs of it working that way.

So where do we draw the lines? Well, no reason to really have a hard and fast rule about it (see the TD catch by Calvin Johnson in Week 1 for a perfect example of why hard and fast rules fall apart eventually). But the general principles do apply. The tournament rules are there to ensure as much fairness and competitiveness as possible. All of the changes to the rules that have been done, can be argued to fit that narrative (whether you buy that completely or not is irrelevant). That is the "limit" we should continue to uphold to the floor rules. But it isn't in and of itself a hard limit either. For example I raise the map list changes. In the past, the general plan was to limit maps based on the experiences of play for fairness and competitiveness. In the current case, we are under extreme expansion, and while those principles will be applied, there is no particular game benefit reason to say we should add custom maps. We are doing so because of outside convictions. But this is not the same thing as making changes to the very design nature of how maps work. That is a change much farther down the "slippery slope", that I think most of us would be uncomfortable with leaping down to.

Um....it's going to take a while to get used to your name being in red

I like the idea in concept, but I have a hard time seeing it actually work in a game. I think it would just raise too many questions. The best option I can think for double doors is to keep them one square apart, I realize that throws off some of the intent and it alters the space issue as well, greatly in fact, but it's like elevation, we've never used it to this point, and I think it's easier to stick with more subtle changes. And I don't see this working in a way that is easy to figure out and discern like with the free standing doors that were discussed in the training ground map thread.

I;m not saying I'm not willing to try, just voicing my concerns, and none of my concerns are really rule issues outside of the current door interaction rules.

_________________"Rolling a Natural 20, there is no other feeling like it."

Member of the SWMRACMember of the Completed till the End and Beyond Club

I like the idea in concept, but I have a hard time seeing it actually work in a game. I think it would just raise too many questions. The best option I can think for double doors is to keep them one square apart, I realize that throws off some of the intent and it alters the space issue as well, greatly in fact, but it's like elevation, we've never used it to this point, and I think it's easier to stick with more subtle changes. And I don't see this working in a way that is easy to figure out and discern like with the free standing doors that were discussed in the training ground map thread.

I;m not saying I'm not willing to try, just voicing my concerns, and none of my concerns are really rule issues outside of the current door interaction rules.

I tend to agree here; any door that needs to be a "double" door for competitive play is best off designed as 2 separate doors: X|X|X

One thing Chris could do is provide a 1-page PDF download that goes with the map and outlines optional special rules for players to use in their home games. There are a lot of maps that feature the blast door style artwork in various places; any of these could be played with the "blast door rules". These new terrain features would not even require outlining on the map, so you could still use the map for DCI.

I really like the idea of the double-wide on the one grid line blast door at Matt proposed.

Yes, it would be nice to have a little different marking to make it easier to differentiate from normal doors for casual play. Yes, it should not be so different that the map would cause confusion in SWMGPA tournament play.

I'm sure Matt will come up with a good solution. Sorry, I don't know what it would be. Another dashed blue line between them?

The other, off-topic but somewhat related, idea of the dashed green lines showing cover that doesn't hinder movement would be another nice addition. Could easily work in casual and SWMGPA games.

OK, I'm convinced that the double-door concept wouldn't work as I theorized. (Insert sad face here.)

In any case, the original premise wasn't based on a need for double doors per se; I just wanted a slow-opening, harder-to-destroy door effect to simulate blast doors. There's no doubt that one could put two sets of doors a square apart to slow down progress through a hallway, but that's really not what I was looking for here.

That having been said, this isn't a terribly important issue; this double-door idea alone is probably not enough to warrant a change to the rules. Added rules are added complexity, and run the risk of making the game less fun instead of more fun, so any modification would need to be A) simple, and B) fun-enhancing.

I do think that changes to the game rules shouldn't be treated as taboo, though. The game is out of print, and with the floor rules for tournament play, and now the creating of new miniatures stats, in the hands of players, it's up to players to let it continue to evolve is evolution is needed.

I personally feel that adding a new terrain effect now and then, or a new way of handling existing terrain features, could do much to keep the game fresh. It should be handled carefully and with great consideration, and only when appropriate, but the game will actually live longer and retain the interest of players if it continues to evolve. That's what the V set is about, and I think the rules should not be above the same consideration.

As for slow-opening doors thing, if anyone likes the idea: I would invite you to try it out with existing maps. Simply add these house rules your your next game night, and see how it works out:

Blast Doors are defined as any door on the battle grid that twice the thickness of a standard door.

1) Blast doors do not open at the end of the first turn that a miniature is adjacent to them; instead, they open at the end of the second consecutive turn in which a miniature is adjacent.

2) Blast doors do not close at the end of a turn in which a miniature ceases to be adjacent to them. Instead, they close at the end of the next turn.

3) Door Control Abilities: A. Two uses of Satchel Charge are required to destroy a blast door. B. When Override or Door Gimmick is used to open a blast door, it instead causes the blast door to be treated as a normal door for the duration of the effect. A second use of those abilities can then open the door as normal. C. When Override is used to close a blast door, it closes at the end of the next turn instead of taking effect immediately.

Honestly, I don't think I could. At least not safely. You see, there's no open gaming license for the Star Wars miniatures game, so I don't think I can legally include with my maps any text that keys off of elements of that game. I guess careful word use could provide gameplay suggestions that don't refer to existing rules, but I couldn't refer to things like Override, Door Gimmick, and so on.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, so I could be wrong about the above restrictions, but if anyone at Lucasfilm disagreed with an action of mine in this sort of situation, I could still end up in hot water with a company that has been a huge part of my career in the past and I hope might be again in the future.

I, for one intend on introducing this concept as a house rule during our casual play in my group. Certainly this adds a new twist in scenarios and mass battles. Maybe if enough of us play with this, someone may come up with an alternative that will mesh with tournament rules, who knows? If not, then we still have another option for casual play. Thanks, Chris.

_________________Cancer is not the boss of me.

Being organized is for people who are too lazy to look for their stuff.

Thanks! I'm free to suggest house rules; I just don't feel comfortable publishing them with my products.

I understand the reasoning behind not putting an insert in the actual map for when it is shipped, but could you have a place on the website with the info and house rules on it for 'when using wth the Star Wars Miniatures game by WotC".

I would think at that point, even if they did give you a C+D order, it would be solved by just taking down the 'suggested house rules' since the map itself has nothing indicating it is related to swm or to anything star wars, since you are vague with the names.

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